Tuesday, October 16, 2007

In an interview on MSNBC Tuesday afternoon, Mrs. Cheney said that in the course of researching her husband's genealogy for her new book, "Blue Skies, No Fences," she discovered that the two public figures share an ancestor eight generations ago.

"Think about this," Mrs. Cheney said. "This is such an amazing American story that one ancestor, a man that came to Maryland, could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths as Dick's and Barack Obama's." [Link]

By my count, it's more like ten generations back (assuming that Mareen Duvall is the shared ancestor). Two extra generations may not seem like much, but when it comes to Dick Cheney, it's always best to keep one's distance.

The first thing I did when I found that one of my cousins back in the 1800s married someone with the last name of Coulter was trace Ann's ancestry back to that year. I'm confident that if it is the same family, the shared ancestor was prior to my cousins marrying into her family so we're not related. I have some third or fourth cousins who might be, but that's their problem to deal with.